Then he returned for the kegs of gin.  They were very heavy, but not too heavy for the strength of the young giant, who was soon hastening with rapid strides towards the bay, where they had left their friends.  He bore a keg under each arm, and Minnie tripped lightly by his side,—­and laughingly, too, for she enjoyed the thought of the discomfiture that was in store for the smugglers.

CHAPTER XX

THE SMUGGLERS ARE “TREATED” TO GIN AND ASTONISHMENT

They found the lieutenant and Captain Ogilvy stretched on the grass, smoking their pipes together.  The daylight had almost deepened into night, and a few stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky.

“Hey! what have we here—­smugglers’!” cried the captain, springing up rather quickly, as Ruby came unexpectedly on them.

“Just so, uncle,” said Minnie, with a laugh.  “We have here some gin, smuggled all the way from Holland, and have come to ask your opinion of it.”

“Why, Ruby, how came you by this?” enquired Lindsay in amazement, as he examined the kegs with critical care.

“Suppose I should say that I have been taken into confidence by the smugglers and then betrayed them.”

“I should reply that the one idea was improbable, and the other impossible,” returned the lieutenant.

“Well, I have at all events found out their secrets, and now I reveal them.”

In a few words Ruby acquainted his friends with all that has just been narrated.

The moment he had finished, the lieutenant ordered his men to launch the boat.  The kegs were put into the stern-sheets, the party embarked, and, pushing off, they rowed gently out of the bay, and crept slowly along the shore, under the deep shadow of the cliffs.

“How dark it is getting!” said Minnie, after they had rowed for some time in silence.

“The moon will soon be up,” said the lieutenant.  “Meanwhile I’ll cast a little light on the subject by having a pipe.  Will you join me, captain?”

This was a temptation which the captain never resisted; indeed, he did not regard it as a temptation at all, and would have smiled at the idea of resistance.

“Minnie, lass,” said he, as he complacently filled the blackened bowl, and calmly stuffed down the glowing tobacco with the end of that marvellously callous little finger, “it’s a wonderful thing that baccy.  I don’t know what man would do without it.”

“Quite as well as woman does, I should think,” replied Minnie.

“I’m not so sure of that, lass.  It’s more nat’ral for man to smoke than for woman.  Ye see, woman, lovely woman, should be ’all my fancy painted her, both lovely and divine’.  It would never do to have baccy perfumes hangin’ about her rosy lips.”

“But, uncle, why should man have the disagreeable perfumes you speak of hanging about his lips?”

“I don’t know, lass.  It’s all a matter o’ feeling.  ’Twere vain to tell thee all I feel, how much my heart would wish to say;’ but of this I’m certain sure, that I’d never git along without my pipe.  It’s like compass, helm, and ballast all in one.  Is that the moon, leftenant?”